1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to Website development environments, and more specifically relates to a system and method for providing a user interface that will give non-technical people the ability to generate application logic for dynamic content selection by using data within a multifaceted search engine and export rules to a Web application server.
2. Related Art
The process of utilizing Websites to collect, manage and exploit data is recognized as an important commercial resource form many enterprises. For instance, if the enterprise knows certain demographics or history about a site visitor logged into their Web portal, the enterprise would ideally like to have a system that can display the most effective content for that user. One of the challenges for such enterprises is that while the business people tend to understand and know how to exploit the data, the technical people tend to control the data and the implementation of the Website. Thus, for example, while a business person may be able to examine user data, such as sales history, and determine the best content and ad placement for a given Web page, the business person cannot implement such rules without interfacing with a technical specialist. This process severely limits the effectiveness of the business person, who may need to analyze and refine such rules in an ongoing and timely fashion.
One method of addressing this problem is to provide a rules-based Website interface that gives non-technical people the ability to control the dynamic display content for their Web pages. Unfortunately, the promise of developing Websites based on rules is largely unfilled because present day systems continue to require skills normally possessed by programmers rather than business people. These skills include developing if-than-else and case-based logic as well as requiring in depth understanding of the nature of the data and data model. In addition, a deep understanding of the data is required to develop matching rules to ensure that relevant content exists for each rule. Such knowledge is only typically gained through programmatic access to the data such as use of SQL or other similar query languages. Currently rules definition facilities are considered “development environments” and are modeled after facilities that programmers use to develop software. Existing rules creation mechanisms provide an environment where the rule must first be coded, run, potentially debugged, and then deployed. This creates a significant impediment to business users creating rules. An example of this type of solution is the current rules wizard inside the WEBSPHERE™ Portal Server.
Accordingly, a need exists for a Website development environment that will allow non-technical people to effectuate changes to the Website by exploiting data associated with the enterprise.